


Take A Breath, Let The Rest Come Easy

by harleen_quinn



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Lilo Spring Fic Exchange, M/M, mention of families - Freeform, promise i don't own them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4003906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harleen_quinn/pseuds/harleen_quinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Louis falls for the boy next door (or two or more) and beats himself up every step of the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take A Breath, Let The Rest Come Easy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> **Title** \- Dear Maria, Count Me In by All Time Low
> 
> **Disclaimer** \- Don't own anyone here, took some liberties, you know the drill, etc.
> 
> **To my recipient** \- I hope you enjoy!

If there’s one thing Louis hates in this world, it’s sweating.  It’s disgusting and inconvenient and just all around unnecessary, in his opinion. Even worse, sweating in _goddamn February._

Dogs have it right, he thinks as he lets the _eighth trillionth_ box crash to the floor.  Fuck the apocrine gland.  He peels off his sweat soaked hoodie and drops it at his feet, simply adding it to the collective mess around him.  His entire life – which isn’t that impressive so it should _not_ have taken this much effort – is scattered about him in various trash bags and boxes.  Seriously, when did he even have time to collect this massive amount of shit?

Cursing under his breath, he realizes he only has about twenty more minutes left on the meter and dashes down the ten flights of stairs to the rental van he parked out front.  Instantly, the cold air bites his skin, and the layer of sweat only seems to make it worse.

He struggles to find a balance of the right sized bags to carry back inside with the least amount of effort.  For a split second, he almost wished he had taken up his stepdad’s offer to help him move in. Almost. 

Thanks to the walking skeleton of the receptionist at the rental office who had looked at him like he had seven heads when he has asked about any sort of rolling cart to help him carry all his crap, Louis had already made at least ten trips up and down the elevator, which he was convinced he was his new enemy. The first two trips had been perfectly fine. The fourth trip, this high pitched grinding sound started kicking in around the third floor.  The seventh trip, the thing just stopped at the sixth floor, for no particular reason at all.  Now, as Louis repeatedly shoulder checked the call button, it was just not moving at all.

“Come on, piece of . . .” Louis mutters as he repeatedly slammed into the thing, feeling especially silly.  His arms are beginning to tremble and he was somehow shivering and feeling lightheaded from the cold _and_ the heat. He wonders how his new roommate – some college student, named Neil or Nate or something – would feel about him just making a nest of all of his belongings and taking a nap in the living room.

“You have to hold it.”

Louis turned to the voice behind him, a little too fast, sending the smallest box on top of his piling falling to the floor, spilling out a collection of shoes and books. He forgot he even owned that many books.

“Ah shit, my bad mate.”  Before Louis can protest, this stranger is picking up his things and putting them back in the box, way more neatly than they were even in there in the first place. He’s wearing running shorts and sneakers and a gray t-shirt soaked with sweat, and Louis is unashamedly bitter than he doesn’t look like a drowned rat like he does.  In fact, just the opposite.  Huge brown eyes meet his for a smile as he stands back up, and when his short sleeves roll back to reveal to full stretch of his arm muscles as he hauls the box back up to his shoulder, Louis is afraid his own spindly arms might just give out.

“Thanks,” He says dumbly, with a nod, and turns to the elevator button – which _still_ had yet to register any of his aggressive jamming.  He sighs, cursing not even under his breath anymore, and before he can reach up his foot to bash the damn thing in hopes that he would have better luck than his shoulder, the boy behind him steps forward and holds the button for a good thirty seconds before it lights up.  The elevator doors open seconds later.

“This thing is public enemy number one.”  He says as they walk in.  He’s still holding Louis’ box.  “What floor’re going to?”

“Uh, ten.”  Louis says. So his wishes were answered, it looks like, in a form ten thousand times more pleasant than useless, bland, irritating _Daniel_.  And also much more enjoyable to look at, which Louis would be a lot happier about if he didn’t need about ten showers at the moment 

“Nice, same here.  So I guess we’re neighbors now.”  He sticks out a hand to shake, then immediately realizes his mistake with a smile. “Sorry.  Name’s Liam." 

“Louis.” He nods his head again. “Glad to see that some people here are more pleasant than the crypt keeper up front.” 

“Who, Marlene?  Yeah, she’s a piece of work.  I wouldn’t say too much about her though, she’s like, the landlord’s mother.”

“Lovely.” Louis gives an involuntary shudder while Liam laughs out loud.  The sound makes Louis involuntarily smile and they spend the rest of the rickety elevator ride up to the tenth floor comparing her to Rozz from _Monster’s Inc._

Louis’ apartment is at the end of the hallway, not the longest distance in the world but for how tired his arms are, it might as well have been running a 5k. He wishes that Liam hadn’t happened to pick up the _lightest_ box, but as he falls a few steps behind Liam, he notices how his damp shirt clings to his back muscles, and he almost walks right past his door. He kicks it open and drops the boxes with a groan, and tells Liam to do the same.

“I promise, my life’s not this much of a mess.”  Louis says, leaning against the wall as Liam takes it all in. Louis’ mess aside, the place looks like an absolute shithole.  The cheap couch, chairs, and table are all pushed into one corner of the living room, and there are dusty footprints on the floor from Louis doesn’t even _know_ where.  The refrigerator is still unplugged and hanging open, and between everything else and his pile of _shit_ , Louis doesn’t quite know how to feel.  Well, except for the –

“Dude. You got a balcony.” Liam exclaims and strolls right across the room and out the sliding door.  Louis follows him, taking note of how this boy is reminding him less of a boy and more of an excited puppy, big brown eyes and all.  Not that’s he’s complaining.  He takes a spot next to Liam hanging onto the rail and immediately starts shivering, and he can’t stop imagining one of Liam’s muscular arms pulling him in, transferring over the body heat . . .

_Bad Louis_.  He tells himself.  He pulls out a crumbled and slightly sweaty pack of cigarettes, stopping just before reaching for his lighter – Liam looks like he had just come back from a jog or something, people who jog _for fun_ are usually health nuts, and health nuts usually don’t like smoking.

_Why do you care_?  The last rational part of his brain asks him, and he suddenly feels admonished.  Why shouldn’t he smoke in his own apartment over what a _literal stranger_ thinks _?_

He keeps the cigarette hidden, loosely dangling in his fingers unlit.

“We should set up an exchange.”  Liam says, still looking forward.  This doesn’t discourage Louis from his outright staring.  “Heavy lifting services for viewing privileges.”

“Sounds like a deal.”  Louis holds out his hand for a handshake and Liam takes it with a smile, grasping it tightly.

Before Louis has time to turn beet red or do something else equally as embarrassing, Liam takes a look at this phone previously strapped to his armband – which admittedly looks silly, even on him, and Louis will _never_ understand this whole exercising for fun nonsense – and smiles apologetically at Louis.

“Ah, sorry man.  Gotta go. I’ll see you around though!”

Before Louis can offer any goodbyes of his own, Liam is gone, letting the door slam closed behind him and leaving a somewhat confused Louis out alone on the balcony. Confused, mostly, about whether or not that actually just happened. Since when do beautiful boys next door _actually_ help pathetic out of shape wimps like him move in?  It seems like something out of the worst romance movie he could possibly think of, something that Lottie would watch for fun 

Lottie. At the thought of his sister, his heart sinks, and he makes a mental note to call the girls as soon as he’s done unpacking for the night.  Maybe before.  He lights the cigarette still in his fingers to focus on literally anything else, and finally takes a look at the sprawling street view in front of him. He still has a few more boxes to take out of the van, but fuck it, he deserves a break.

It’s actually a fairly impressive view.  He can see up and down the block and even further for a decent way, and even though the buildings surrounding his are just as high, if not even higher, he can see peeks of blue sky and ant-sized bustling city traffic through the spaces. Below him, the people passing by the sidewalk and crossing the street aren’t quite ants, but far enough away that Louis can definitely forget himself, focusing on, well, the rest of the world instead.

***

Niall – which is _actually_ the name of Louis’ new roommate – is perhaps one of the most bizarre people Louis has ever met. He doesn’t move in until later that night, when Louis is almost entirely unpacked, carrying only a large duffel bag. He merely shrugs Louis’ questions about _that_ away, and instead launches into a story about how horrendous his last place of living was, some house that was closer to the suburbs than not and there was something about either a rat infestation or a gas leak.  Maybe both.  Louis could hardly keep up, the blonde boy spoke so fast.  He takes a break only to pop into his new bedroom on the other end of the apartment, trades out a hoodie for a _different_ hoodie, and declares that the two of them were to hit one of the local bars a few streets away to bond as roommates.

And to be honest, Louis is drained from all the moving in shit, but he has the feeling that trying to argue with his new motor-mouthed roommate would be more exhausting than any amount of alcohol.  Plus, he figures he might as well try to get on with the person he’ll be living with for at least the next twelve months. Niall continues his story about the gas/rat infestation from the living room as Louis looks through his unpacked things for something not disgusting to wear, and only remembers at the last minute to toss away the headband keeping his hair from falling in his face, something he lifted out of one of the girl’s room as a joke and never remembered to return.

“Let me tell you man.  You have no idea how relieved I am that you aren’t, like, a wizard or something.” Niall shouts over the music of the bar – some top 40 remix that isn’t actually too horrible.  They’re both two beers and two shots in, and Louis is feeling pleasantly loose.

“How do you know I’m not a wizard?”  Louis grins as he flourishes some grand Harry Potter-esque gesture with his arm. Before Louis can answer the question, Niall, is leaning forward, checking out someone across the room.

“Damn.” He whistles lowly, and gestures for Louis to turn around.  He thinks the one Niall is talking about is the brunette with a short purple dress and nails to match, but to be honest, she doesn’t looks much different than the group of six other girls she’s standing with.

“Sure.” He shrugs.

“What, hot girls aren’t your type?”  Niall says with a laugh.

“Not really.”  Louis stares into the watered down remains of his drink before tossing it back. It’s a few moments before realization dawns on Niall’s face.

“Got it.”  He nods, and Louis’ heart practically soars with gratitude.  Even in this day and age, coming out to everyone he absolutely has to is a terse, anxiety filled battle.  Reactions have ranged from shrugging and carrying on, to sudden wide-eyed and delicate treatment like he was some fragile commodity, to having drinks thrown in his face.

“So how do you know?”

“Know?” Louis frowns, his heart rapidly taking a nose dive back down into his stomach.  _Fucking shit._ “What, that I’m . . . 

“No, shit no.”  Niall laughs, waving his hands.  “I mean like, okay, you’re here, and you think that guy over there’s cute.”  Niall points to a skinny hipster type – complete with the flannel and beanie and completely unnecessary massive beard – at the other end of the bar.

“He’s not cute.”  Louis shudders. He doesn’t even want to imagine the rugburn on his thighs.

“Not the point.”

“I mean, maybe if he shaved . . .”

“I’m serious!”  Niall laughs as a show that he completely was not, with just a bit of a hiccup at the end. “So you see him – _shaved_ , just for you – and you wanna like, I dunno, whatever. But how do you _know_?  If he’s down or not. 

“You’re asking me if I have gaydar.”  Louis says, and the feeling of _cringe_ clamps over him like a giant bear trap.  Not because of the question, but actually because of the answer.

The sad, embarrassing truth was that Louis had approximately none. He had a sense he would be useless with talking to women if he was straight too, but at least that comes with some basic default settings.  Om the off chance that Louis did ever find someone he would consider making a move on, by the time his mind scrolled through all of the possible outcomes – ranging from actual success to quiet humiliation to _loud_ humiliation to disgust and getting his teeth knocked out – he was so paralyzed with fear that moving just was not an option.  And usually, by then, the object of his affections had moved on.

He suddenly thinks of Liam, how eager he had been to help him carry his things moving in and following him into his apartment, and how he doesn’t _seem_ like the type of guy to punch him in the face for suggesting anything, but Louis forces the idea out of his head before he gets any more drunk and it gets any worse.

“Should I have not asked that?  Was it like, bad?”  Niall asks, and Louis realized he hadn’t even answered him.

“You’re fine.  I’ll allow you to keep the token straight card.  Only if you drink one _entire_ appletini, though.”

Louis throws his head back in laughter at the way Niall’s face falls and how he tries to pretend that it doesn’t.  Much to his surprise, he does in fact finish the whole thing, and the two exchange drinks and stories and even have some fun on the dance floor until the lights come up and they manage to stumble home together.  The entire time, Louis only thinks about the boy down the hall once or twice, which he considered a huge success.

***

The next six weeks or so fly by pretty fast for Louis.  He sees his friendly neighborhood Liam far less than he would like, only in short bursts coming out of the elevator when he’s getting on or occasionally on the same bus.  Their conversation is always shorter and more shallow than he would hope for, partially because they’re only really speaking for thirty seconds at a time, and party because Louis is too much of a fucking chicken to talk about anything more than _how he’s doing_ and _the weather_ – a real conversation topic that Louis actually brought up, that he spent the six next hours kicking himself for.

Niall, try as he might, is absolutely useless at advice.  “Just talk to him.”  He suggests, after Louis spends ten minutes bemoaning a particularly awkward encounter at the drug store down the block from their building.  “Ask him where he works or goes to school or something. Something about his life.”

“I hardly _know_ the guy.” Louis will whine.

“Well, isn’t that what we’re trying to fix.”

“I don’t want to be creepy.”

“It’s not being creepy Lou, it’s called being _social_. Not everyone is as fun as me, and’s gonna give you their life story unwarranted.”

Hating how _right_ he is, Louis usually just pulls the closest object over his face and wonders if it’s too early to go to sleep.

Eventually, though, he has less and less time to think about his crippling social inadequacy.  He begins picking up more serving shifts at Beaumont’s Bar and Grill downtown, the temp job he stumbled into a little over a year ago becoming more and more of something resembling a full time position.  He doesn’t get home until well after midnight most nights, sometimes as late as two and three in the morning, and rarely wakes up before noon. 

Niall, when he’s not at classes or otherwise dicking around on campus at the city college a few neighborhoods away, keeps Louis company hanging around the apartment, telling him some story about people he doesn’t know and whose names he can’t keep straight or deciding he’s going to make pancakes for the both of them at four in the afternoon, and when it starts to get warmer around the middle of March, hanging off the rail of the balcony people watching with him. The rare few evenings Louis does have off, he lets Niall drag him out, lets himself unwind and pretend that he’s something resembling a normal young adult.  Niall practically demands it.

He’s energetic, sunny, and one of the most _constant_ people Louis has ever met. 

He never thought he could enjoy having a roommate this much.

Except the times when Louis changes his mind and decides that Niall is, in fact, the _worst_ roommate ever.

Like tonight.

A not so muffled _SLAP_ comes from beyond the wall, followed by a quick giggle that turns into a louder moan.  Louis drains the rest of his cheap beer and sinks into the couch, praying for the sweet release of death. Instead, he gets the rhythmic sound of something being thrown into the wall, accompanied by rather unfortunate human noises on top of it.  Louis pulls a pillow over his face, curls into the back of the couch, and waits for the sweet release of death.

The nights that Niall ventures out without him, if he makes it back to the apartment he always, without fail, always brings home a guest with him.  Sometimes they’re reoccurring, sometimes they’re not.  Lately, it was more on the _not_ end.

The voice that suddenly moans out Niall’s name is so breathy and over the top that even Louis can tell it’s some fake straight porn bullshit.  He realizes that the reason it costs him so little to live here it probably because the walls are most likely made of hardened newspaper rather than anything substantial. By the _third_ moan within a minute, Louis has had enough.  He jams his feet into the beat up chucks next to the couch, grabs a jacket and throws open the front door.  He needs to be somewhere, _anywhere_ else.

Instead, he’s instantly met with the sound of _cracking_ , times about a thousand.

“Shit!”

He’s standing in a sea of something goopy and white and yellow that felt disgusting, and was quickly seeping over his quick flip flops.  He quickly hopped up on one foot and shook off the gunk, only to shake it right onto the leg of –

Of course.

“Shit . . .  shit.  I’m so sorry.”  Liam rubs the back of his neck, looking embarrassed and apologetic but at the same time oddly distressed.  In his other hand is what looks like a large . . . crate?  Louis opens his mouth willing for something, _anything_ clever or smooth to come out.

“Are these . . . eggs?”

Close enough.

“Uh, yeah.”  Liam says again, looking around them helplessly.  He looks like he wants to pick up the mess, but decides against it.  He also looks like he wants to die a little bit, and Louis _wants_ to revel in the fact that for once he’s not the one making the giant ass out of himself, but he just can’t. Liam looks like a deer caught in the headlights, beet red and small for someone that could crush Louis with a squeeze of his arms.

“This has to be, like . . .” Louis looks at the disaster at their feet.

“Three dozen.”

“Ah.”

The silence hangs in the air, so thick it could probably be physically considered a solid.

“What are. . . why do you have three dozen eggs?”

“It’s a, uh, long story.”  Liam says. Louis looks at the closed door to his apartment behind him – venturing back inside just feels dangerous and gross.

“I mean, I sort of have a lot of time on my hands.”

“Okay. Well.  The thing is, I – actually, maybe we should get cleaned up first.” Liam gestures downward and Louis nods – the yolks are starting to soak through his shoes and feel disgusting.

“Good idea. I would offer my kitchen but uh, you really don’t wanna go in there right now.”  Louis gives an involuntary shudder – he will be elderly, and Niall’s _sounds_ will probably still haunt him.

“Fair enough.”  Liam says with a short laugh, and the two begin walking down the hallway to Liam’s place. _Liam’s place_ , the thought hits Louis and his heart all but bursts out of his chest.  What could someone possibly be doing with three dozen eggs at nearly midnight?  Possibilities are suddenly rushing through his mind. Is Liam some kind of expert chef that specializes in omelets or something?  A health nut that uses egg whites to soften his skin? Could eggs be some kind of weird fetish? The last one makes his heart thump even faster.

“Roommate troubles?”  Liam asks as he fishes through his pocket for his keys.  It snaps Louis out of his revolving door of thoughts.

“Uh, something like that.” 

“Been there.  Used to get sexiled, like, every other night back when I was in school.”  The mere thought of whatever Niall was doing at that very moment must have shown on Louis’ face.  He wonders if he’s always this much of an open book.  “Whenever I didn’t have anywhere to crash I would just like, hang out in the hallway.  Got a lot of homework done out there.”

“Your roommate sounds like a bit of a dick.”  Louis admits. 

“Nah, Zayn’s a good guy.  We’re still friends. Just too horny for his own good.” Before Louis can think of any kind of clever response about being horny, Liam perks up.  “You know, I think this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.”

It’s true – not that Louis is keeping track or anything.  He can feel himself turn beet red, but he’s on some kind of roll, and thankfully, doesn’t feel like stopping now.  “We should start keeping a tally.  Maybe keep score.  One point for every time we run into each other.  Five points for every time we say something more than hi and bye.” 

“How many does this count for?”

“Let’s see how long it takes to clean this shit off me first, yeah?”

Instantly, he realizes he just missed what Niall would call and open invitation to flirt and makes a mental note to beat the crap out of himself later.

Liam’s apartment is much neater than Louis’ – dishes not piled in the sink, no form of laundry strewn across the living room floor, nothing really more than the standard empty pizza boxes and plate or two left across the table. Liam offers Louis a wet rag before he disappears down the short hallway, leaving Louis to scan the place as he cleans himself off.  The furniture is arranged differently than in Louis’ place and a few posters decorate the walls. But what really catches his eye is the stack of bright pink whicker baskets sitting in the middle of the coffee table, overflowing with fake yellow grass and decorated with flowers on the side.  Liam sees him eyeing the centerpiece as he reemerges and quickly yanks it away.

Louis wants to say something about it because, well, why not, but considering the fact that the other boy is currently the color of a tomato, he can’t find it in himself.  “So, uh, where’re you going to school?”  He tries instead.

Liam shrugs, sitting down on the couch as Louis awkwardly kneels to the floor and begins wiping his now crusty feet. “No where right now. I’m uh, taking a year off. Working for my mom for the parks and rec.  That’s actually . . .” He gestures to the empty egg crate he tossed against the wall. “Got roped into decorating all the eggs for the Easter egg hunt next week.  In the park, the one the city puts on.  It’s a total pain in the ass.  And lame. But the kids get really into it.” Liam’s smiling by the end, and Louis’ heart is fluttering.

“That’s pretty awesome, actually.”  He says, and he means it.  “When my sisters were younger, we used to do the same sort of thing.  My mum would hide eggs all around and we would practically kill each other trying to find all the eggs first.”

“That’s adorable." 

“Yeah.” He can’t help but smile himself at the memory.  “Me and Lottie and Fizzy would like, _Battle Royale_ the crap out of each other and Daisy and Phoebe would just kind of run after us and wanna be included, you know?  And we would do it like, _every_ year, even when we were way too old for it to be cool.  It was just our thing.”  Louis remembers that he never called Lottie that one night after move in – he had run out with Niall instead, and immediately feels lower than dirt. 

“I’m serious Louis.  It sounds pretty cool. You gotta cool family.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty awesome.” 

It’s only half of a lie.  He loves his sisters with all of his heart and soul, and he could practically feel Lottie and Fizzy rolling their eyes out of their heads all the way from where he was at the thought of the sentiment.  But his mother seemed to become a different person, and her new boyfriend or fiancé or maybe husband, now, _whatever,_ was just . . .

“Louis . . .?" 

“Hmm?” Louis snaps his head up to see Liam looking at him, confused, and realizes he was spacing out. “Yeah, sorry.”

“I said you should come.” 

It doesn’t compute in Louis’ head, at least not at first, and Liam must have taken Louis’ silence as rejection, because he’s immediately back peddling. “If you want to, if you don’t have like, plans or anything.  Or if you don’t want to watch a bunch of little kids run around all day – ”

It normally sounds like Louis’ own personal version of hell. Not so much the part with the kids, but any sort of city planned function with throngs of people and probably some poor asshole in an overheated Easter Bunny costume.  Instead, he remembers the girls ten years younger, tearing around the backyard of the house they grew up in, diving under bushes and digging through his mum’s gardens and practically giving her a heart attack, and he can’t help but smile.

“Sounds awesome.”  He says. “Only if you save me some of these eggs though.”

“I can’t believe I have to be the one to paint _all_ of them.”  Liam says with a groan, sinking into the couch.  “I can barely draw a circle.  How many different ways are there to paint eggs anyway?”

“You’re better off than me.  I nearly got booted from art class like ten times in grade school cause I couldn’t draw a straight line for shit.”

The two stay like that for what feels like hours, Louis remaining on the floor on the other side of the room from Liam, which isn’t ideal, but before long he feels like he could have known Liam for years with all that he knows about him. Louis keeps the conversation away from his own family, talking freely about his sisters and carefully avoids mentioning his parents.  He tells story after story about the craziest of customers at Beaumont’s, how he found this apartment and by extension Niall through an emergency add on Craiglist and how he was sure he was going to lose a kidney, about stories of Niall himself. Liam is much more open, and by the end of the night Louis knows all about his parents, about his two sisters, about how he’s studying psychology and plans to go back to school in the fall. He’s just about to ask why he took the time off when he notice Liam s nearly falling asleep mid conversation and begrudgingly decides it’s safe to venture back down the hall. He doesn’t stop grinning until he falls asleep.

The next morning, he makes the mistake of telling Niall to keep the sex noises to a minimum, because by the time he’s a third of the way through his story, Niall is gloating at the top of his lungs about how Louis owes him a drink, two if he and Liam make it to a date and _ten_ if they fuck.  Louis threatens to throw his cereal at him multiple times, but in reality, he’s willing to buy Niall all the drinks in the world.

***

Louis almost doesn’t recognize Liam through the hoards of people packed into the park, but when he does, the other boy is impossible to miss. And Louis can’t help it – he starts laughing like a maniac as soon as he sees him manning the table with the explosively bright _EASTER EGG HUNT!_ sign above him.

“You’re a fucking _rabbit_.” He exclaims as he sits down next to Liam on the grass, and he swears he can see Liam turn beet red under the thick white paint.

“The things I do for these hellions.”  He grumbles, but he’s all smiles and bright voices when two shy girls in overly fancy Easter dresses run up to him and ask for baskets, and Louis suspects he’s way more into this then he’s letting on and it makes him feel strangely warm.

“It’s like that scene in _A Christmas Story_ yeah, when the mum makes Ralphie put on the pajamas?”

Liam laughs out loud.  “Don’t say that too loud. My mum’s around here somewhere, you’ll give her ideas.”

“Even better.”

Louis can hardly believe how shy and nerve-wracked he was around Liam such a short time ago.  In the weeks leading up to the town Easter party, the two were talking almost every day. If they didn’t bump into each other on the street and end up coming up to the tenth floor together or something equally as random, Liam was knocking on his door to ask if a certain painted egg looked stupid, and Louis was there to offer advice and opinions and eventually, conversation on what the fuck ever popped into their minds. On the third day in a row of this happening, after Liam apologizes profusely for how much he keeps bothering him and why doesn’t he give just Louis his number to make things easier? Niall happened to be sprawled out on the couch watching TV, grinning like an idiot at Louis the second he shut the door.

“I’ve got my drink orders lined up and waiting, Tommo.”

“Just a neighbor asking for advice, Niall.”  Louis insisted.  “We’re friends.”

“ _Just_ friends?" 

Louis took a particularly loud and careful time sorting through the dishwasher looking for a specific plate.

“Tell me you’re not going to make a move.”

“I don’t know, Niall.”

“You spent the night as his place." 

“I did not spend the night, your loud annoying ass practically kicked me out!” 

“You’re welcome.”  Niall said with a proud smirk, and Louis rolled his eyes.  “But seriously, you’re just going to be awkwardly close buddy-buddy neighbors forever?  Don’t tell me I have to be the one to go over there and – ”

“Don’t you have anything else to be doing Niall – like, literally, anything else?” Louis snaps, and Niall seems to get the hint.  He shrugs and turns back to _The Walking Dead._

In reality, there are a lot of things Louis wants, and he’s gotten pretty good about only letting himself think about them alone in his room, imagining Liam’s paint stained t-shirt tossed to the floor and his own hands tracing his muscles . . .

Louis bites his lip and looks at Liam out of the corner of his eye, thankful that he wore somewhat tight pants today.  It doesn’t help his cause.  He didn’t think it was possible to be attracted to someone painted as a fucking cartoon rabbit, but never say never . . .

“Can I have a basket?”  A boy that has to be around Daisy and Phoebe’s age comes up to the table, staring directly for Louis instead of Liam, and it takes him a moment to register that he’s actually asking him.

“What’s the magic word?”  He asks the boy, something he would always ask his sisters whenever they would ask him for anything and he wanted to screw with them a little bit.

“Um, please?”

“The magic word was actually _candy,_ but I’ll be nice anyway.”  Louis says with a wink and hands him one of the cheap plastic baskets from the box at his feet. The boy grins at him and runs away, sneaking up on a younger girl that Louis assumes must be his sister, and whacking him in the back of the head.  Both of the boys laugh.

“Little shit.  Reminds me of me and Lottie when we were kids though.”

“You’re pretty good with them.”  Liam notes, then grins wickedly.  “Maybe we should paint you like a chicken and we can be an official team.”

“Don’t make me shove one of these eggs up your arse, Payne.”

“Is that a threat now?”

“More of a promise.” 

It’s at that moment that a family of six swarms the table, and both he and Liam begin taking demands for what color baskets all the kids want. Without even realizing it, Louis becomes Liam’s unofficial assistant for the egg hunt, and the two watch together as fifty-something kids scourge the roped off square of the park like drug dogs.

He snaps a few pictures and attaches them in a quick text to Lottie. _Not quite the Tomlinson family affair but still pretty cool. Give the girls hell for me sis. xx_

It’s nearly an hour later that all of the kids run up to Liam and Louis with baskets full of eggs and wide grins and the two take turns give out the prizes – large foil covered chocolate rabbits, that the parents behind them visibly stare at in horror.  In typical kid fashion, some quit in frustration after not finding any eggs or simply wander off due to boredom, so the two have a decent stash left.

“Uncanny resemblance, don’t you think?”  Liam holds one up to his painted face as the two begin packing up the table.

“Pretty close.  One’s a lot tastier though.”

“And which one is that?”

Louis practically drops the folded card table on his foot.

Thankfully, it’s at that moment a tiny straggler runs up to them, presenting the two his basket, and Liam gives the offending rabbit to him.

“You really didn’t have to do all of this.”  Liam says later on, gesturing to the folded table and the packed boxes around him.  “It’s not your job.”

“Yeah, well, my real job sucks, so I might as well, you know?” Louis shrugs, and Liam smiles at him. Even through the stupid greasepaint, the smile shines all the way to his eyes and it’s just not _fair_ , and even though the gaze lingers between them, Louis forces himself to tear his gaze away and point in the general direction of away. “Are those sno-cones?” He convinces Liam to follow him over and wait in the impossibly long line with him.

The egg hunt seemed to be the highlight of the festivities, the rest of the entertainment being street vendors with some holiday crafts in bright pastels, overpriced carnival food – that Louis and Liam consume half of anyway – and a puppet show that Liam finds entertaining, but Louis finds somewhat creepy. It’s an unreasonably warm day for mid-March and Louis bemoans his decision to wear jeans while Liam is perfectly comfortable in a tank top.  Liam agrees to carry the heaviest things back to the apartment some ten-odd blocks away, and it wasn’t Louis’ intention, but he’s secretly eternally grateful. Somehow, he manages to carry three boxes full of miscellaneous Easter crafts while still managing to shovel down a funnel cake.

“You know those things are practically made of – ”

“Diabetes?” Louis says through a full mouth.

“I was going to say a hundred percent sugar, but you’re not wrong.”

“It’s bad enough that you run for fun, don’t tell me you’re some health nut too.” Louis moans.  “I suppose you’ll want me to eat some kale or some shit instead.”

“Nah, that’s more Harry’s thing.”  Before Louis can ask who Harry is, Liam opens his mouth wide.  “Help me out. 

Louis nearly stops dead in his tracks, wondering if he’s truly being pranked by the universe.  Carefully as he can possibly manages, he rips off a piece of dough and slowly, gently, places into Liam’s waiting tongue.  His fingers just barely brush Liam’s lips, and the sensation that runs down Louis’ arm is borderline electric. 

Liam grins at him out of the corner of his eye, and fuck it, Louis has half the mind to throw all of the shit in his arms to the ground, grab Liam by the back of the head and just . . .

“Liam!”

Louis has no idea where he even comes from, the tall and lanky figure with long brown hair literally _bouncing_ behind him, held off his face by a pair of sunglasses while a second sit on his face. His shirt is buttoned hardly halfway up his shirt and he’s wearing a pair of boots that seem to be – that are actually fucking _sparkling_. As nonsensical as it all is, it all fades away as he slides up on the other side of Liam and snakes an arm around his waist.

“There you are!  I’ve been waiting for you to get home for so long.”  He has a few inches on Liam, just enough for him to lean down and bury his face in Liam’s hair.  Louis tries to keep his gaze straight ahead, stone cold and _definitely_ not glaring.

“Hey Haz, I told you I had the fair all day.”  Liam says, and glances at Louis out of the corner of his eye. For the briefest of seconds, Louis swears he looks almost apologetic.  “Louis, this is Harry.  My roommate.”

“Charmed.” Louis says.

Roommate. A roommate that Liam hadn’t once even mentioned – Louis assumed that whoever Liam lived with was some unfamiliar that simply paid their portion of the rent and went about their own life. Then again, what kind of roommate only roommates snuggle in the middle of the fucking streets in the middle of the afternoon?  Louis feels every ounce of energy drain from him at once, and the familiar heat of embarrassment once again settles in his chest.

With Harry still glued to his side, Liam turns to Louis.  “After we drop all this shit off, we were gonna go down to this pub we know happy hour.  You in?”

Louis would rather light his head on fire then spend five more minutes watching . . . whatever was unfolding in front of him.  Being the awkward, tacked on third wheel was a thousand times worse than being alone.  But Liam looks so damn _earnest_ and in a way, every part of his body is screaming in agreement just at the notion of spending more time with Liam. 

It struck him just how truly pathetic that was, and he was just about to spit out some half ass excuse about some imaginary shift he was picking up that night, when he was suddenly being groped from behind.

“Thought I heard ya Lou.”  Niall said, jovial as ever.

“Hi Niall.”  Louis said, simply too emotionally exhausted to say anything else.  Liam perks up.

“Oh, you’re Niall.  I’ve heard a ton about you mate, name’s Liam.”

It’s like watching a train wreck unfold.  Louis internally begs for Niall not to say anything embarrassing or what he would proclaim as helpful, but instead he just nods.  “Nice to meet you mate.”

Louis makes a mental note to bow down to Niall later.

“We were all about to head down to this pub.  Half off drinks for the next hour.  The more the merrier.  You in?” Liam offers.  

Niall squeezes Louis’ shoulder.  “Sounds like a fuckin’ plan to me, right Lou?”

“Delightful.” Harry drones, his voice slow and sensual.  The last thing he seems like he needs is any more alcohol.

Louis changes his mind.  If he has it his way, Niall will be dead by morning.

But then again, when was the last time anything went his way? 

***

 

“So, it’s just me, and the catering staff for this, thing. And everyone else is locked out, and the only bloke with the key is nowhere.  Completely nowhere.”

As it turns out, Harry’s overly slow and heavy way of talking was not alcohol, but just in fact the way he talks, and it’s taken the better part of the past hour for him to tell some story that only Niall seems to be interested in. Louis resists the urge to roll his eyes for the fifteenth time that hour, though it’s getting harder and harder with each drink that he knocks back.  He lost count around three or four, but he’s good and drunk, and while it normally makes everything more pleasant, he still can’t stand Harry fucking Styles.

Everything about him just makes him want to crawl under their table and never come back out.  The annoying way he talks, the long and gangly legs, the way his shirt just sways around his open chest like he’s some model for trashy romance novels out of the nineties – the fact that he’s an _actual model_ , can’t forget that one.  

“It’s no big deal, really.”  He had shrugged after tossing that casual little gem out, like he was mentioning the stroll he went on last night, and Niall was gaping openly at him. “I mostly take the pictures. For fun, anyway. Some of my friends and I were dicking around for a portrait class back when I was eighteen, there was some gala or gallery or something, so . . .”

“Harry’s shooting for Calvin Klein next week.”  Liam piped up.  It was one of the few sentences he had said all night.

“Hilfiger.” Harry corrected him, then shrugs, as if stumbling into supermodel-dom is just something that happens to everyone.

Louis wonders if Harry would still be so supermodel beautiful with all of his hair burned off his head.

“ . . . so Tokyo next month should be interesting.”  Harry concludes with a long sip of his Long Island. _Thank God._ Louis thinks, and takes another drink as a cheers to himself.

“Tokyo, ” Liam turns to Harry, clearly confused.  “You’re going back?”

“Uh, yeah.  It just sort of happened right before I ran into you after the . . . thing.  They want me to come take some group shots.”

“I’m gonna grab another drink.” Niall says and quickly excuses himself from their table.  If Liam and Harry even hear him, they don’t acknowledge.

“I thought you were going to try and stay around here for a while – that’s why you asked me to move in with you, wasn’t it? 

“I can’t control where they want me to go, Liam.”

Louis doesn’t know if it’s accidental or not, but Liam’s eyes briefly meet his.  Almost like they’re looking for help.  His gaze lingers like that, even if only for a few seconds, and suddenly Louis’ stomach is doing cartwheels.

“I gotta . . .” Louis makes a dash for the bathroom, struggling to place one foot in front of the other the entire way. He’s fucked up, he recognizes, and he doesn’t know if that’s good or bad.

He splashes some cold water on his face and stares, really stares, at his dripping reflection in the grimy mirror. His hair is in desperate need of a cut of some sort, he hasn’t shaved in days, and no matter how much sleep he gets dark circles seem to persist under his eyes.  Then there was the fact that he was twenty-three years old working as a waiter with half a college degree.

_Such a waste of potential._   Mark’s voice is ringing in the back of his head, his kind and familiar face sagging with disappointment. He remembers telling Lottie and Fizzy how he was going to make it in the big city, how excited they were to come visit him in his fancy apartment.  Hell, he even sees his mothers face, tired and distant but still kind, softly telling him how proud she would always be of him, no matter what.

Louis eyes begin to prick with tears. He’s almost crying, then almost laughing from how ridiculous it all is – he’s a grown man drunkenly hiding from a supermodel in a dirty bathroom.  So ridiculous. He takes a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself –

And throws up into the sink.

As soon as he leaves the bathroom he can see his table. Niall is still nowhere to be found. Liam’s back is to him, and Harry is leaning in close, so close that it almost makes Louis angry. He suddenly remembers those silly TV movies the twins would watch practically every day after school. If this was one of those, he thinks, he would storm right on over, inform Liam that’s he’s too good for this, maybe punch Harry in the face while the rest of the room cheers and they would run off happily ever after into the sunset or something.

Instead, Louis sees Harry’s massive hand splayed out over Liam’s thigh, and he has to swallow deeply to keep round two from making an appearance.

Luckily, there’s a back door that leads into an alley right next to the bathroom.  Louis pulls out his phone and sends the most coherent text he can to Liam right before he slips out.

_Not feelin too good.  Gonna head home_

The response back is almost immediate

**_:(_**

Louis throws up a second time on the way home, into a trashcan on the sidewalk, and he doesn’t remember anything more after that.

 

***

The hangover Louis has the next morning is one of the worst he’s had in maybe his entire life – including his first drink at fifteen when he and his school friends passed someone’s dad’s bottle of peach schnapps around until they all started throwing up orange.  But this is worst than just a headache – Louis can’t even bring himself to leave his bed. Every time he tries to so much as sit up, the world gives out from under him and his head splits in two, so he just flops back to his pillow.  The day creeps well past noon, two, then four o’clock in the afternoon, and it gets to the point where Niall barges right into his room to make sure he’s not dead. He takes one look at Louis, moves the trash can next to his head, and leaves him be.

All he wants to do is sleep, but every time he closes his eyes he sees Liam’s face, the way he smiled at him all throughout the fair yesterday, how sinful his lips looked, open and waiting for his . . .

When he does manage to doze off, he dreams of nothing more than walking home with Liam from the pub, no Harry in sight, just the two of them, loosely holding hands. Liam brushes stray pieces of hair out of Louis’ face right in front of his door and gently moves closer, their faces only inches apart. 

It’s at that moment that Louis wakes up with a jolt, throwing up into the trashcan almost immediately.  The only coherent thought he has is the harsh, horrible, stomach turning realization that he has it out _bad_ for Liam Payne.

 

***

“You’re going to have to take the elevator again sooner or later.”

Louis rolls over onto his back with great difficulty, his burning legs practically screaming at him.  He looks up at Niall from his spot on the floor, judging him over his bowl of cereal.  He needs to make another call to Marlene down at the office – their air conditioning desperately needs turned on.

“It’s good exercise Ni.  Actually feels pretty good, once you get used to the – ” He bites back a grimace as he pulls himself into a sitting position – not very well apparently, by the way Niall snorts at him.  “The burn.”

“Something tells me that it’s not your calf muscles you’re worried about here.”

Louis just shrugs.  “Nothing wrong with a little change of scenery, yeah?”

It’s a massive understatement. Louis’ spend the last week almost detouring, well, everything, in order to minimize encounters and contact with Liam as much as possible.  He starts taking the stairs instead of the elevator, he finds a different route to work – a block or two longer, but not the _most_ inconvenient ever – and generally keeps his head down when he would normally find himself scanning the nearby stores and parks and nearly everywhere else, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. 

Even worse, and he sort of hates himself for it, he’s been ignoring Liam’s texts.  He’ll occasionally give the briefest answer, usually followed by Liam asking if he wants to grab a drink or come over to watch the binge some new show he found on Netflix the night before, and Louis tells him that he’s pulling a late shift or even worse, he just won’t answer at all.  Even worse than that, it doesn’t seem to discourage him. They’re all lined up on his phone, a memento of how much he utterly sucks, but he can’t bring himself to delete them. 

It’s just at that moment that his phone buzzes. Louis doesn’t even need to look to see who it’s from, but he does anyway.

**_Game of Thrones at 9?_**

And immediately after:

**_Haven’t seen you in forever mate.  You still alive_ **

Louis tosses the phone away from him, an act that doesn’t go unnoticed by Niall. 

“Answer him, you twit.”

“Shouldn’t _Harry_ be watching Game of Thrones with him?”  He can’t help but sneer.  He can practically feel Niall rolling his eyes at his back.

“As a friend and as my duty as the one that has to live with your sad ass, I’m telling you now, you’re acting like a massive bitch.”

“Niall, he’s a _supermodel_.” Louis moans as he rolls back onto his front.  “He’s this beautiful, fascinating creature – ”

“He’s a pretty face.”

“I _wait_ _tables_ for a living – ”

“You’re a regular person.”

“And Liam is madly in love with his super model boyfriend and I’m not going to get involved.  It’s called moving on.” 

Niall snorts with laugher, and Louis looks up at him, confused. 

“If they’re so madly in love, why didn’t Liam mention him to you – once?”

“I don’t _know_ , Niall.”  That seemed to be Louis’ answer for most things these days.

“I guess we’re gonna find out.”

“And how exactly do you – wait, Niall. _Niall_!” 

Niall leans down over Louis and plucks the phone away from him and Louis struggles to scramble to his feet while his legs scream at him for the disrespect.

“ ‘Oh, I would _love_ to come over for Game of Thrones, Liam.  I’ll bring the beer.  Say, will Harry be there?  He’s really not around much, is he?’ ”  Niall speaks to the phone, his thumbs hovering dangerously close to the keyboard. 

“Niall I swear, I will shove that entire phone up your – _Niall!_ ”  Louis lunges for him but Niall is quick, much quicker than he looks. “Quit acting like a fucking five year old and give me my phone back!”

Niall narrows his eyes, giving him and unreadable look, and tosses the phone back so suddenly that Louis nearly drops it. 

“You’re a horrible liar, Lou.” He says, and a tiny smirk breaks out across his face.  “Fine. If _you_ won’t do something . . . ” He turns on his heel and runs out the door. Louis’ mouth falls open.

“What the – where are you - !?” He bursts through the door right after him, looking down the hall, but he’s nowhere to be seen on this end. He looks in the other direction, around the corner where he knows Liam’s apartment is.  Cursing under his breath, he begins sprinting down the hall. 

“You are _dead_ Horan, you hear me?!  _Dead_ – ”

He’s almost knocked over flat by a figure that doesn’t even stop to apologize.  Louis looks over his shoulder to see only a glimpse of brown hair and broad shoulders before they disappear around the corner.  Turning back around, his heart drops into his stomach.

Liam stands before him, fists clenched at his sides, his face an unrecognizable mask of anger.  His jaw his set and his entire arms are tensed, and for the first time, Louis gets the sense of how much bigger he really is – how he could probably snap him in two.  Liam tears his hard gaze away and looks at him for the first time, and Louis swallows the breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

For the first time, Louis doesn’t have the burning desire to look away.  He waits, expecting for Liam to relax and melt into the soft, kind, constantly smiling Liam he’s gotten so used to.  The two stay like that, in a stand off for what feels like hours, and that moment never comes.

“Liam – ”

The door slams loud enough to echo down the entire hallway, and just like that, Liam is gone.

*** 

Louis is home before midnight that night, before 11 P.M. even, and he’s positive it has to do with the fact that his head was miles away all night, that he could not give two shits about appetizer specials and drink orders and which table got which meal, and it showed. He spends every second he’s not with a customer on his phone, frantically texting Niall with no luck, and wondering if he should text Liam than chickening out.  He probably should have gotten chewed out, he laments, but he figures he’ll pick up a double or cover a shift or two somewhere down the line to make up for it.

He leans back in the rickety plastic chairs that served as their balcony furniture, chairs that he and Niall had spotted outside a closed coffee shop late one night after a few drinks at the bar, and had drunkenly thought to drag home.  His feet are propped up on the railing as he rocks back and forth, watching the thin trail of smoke off his cigarette twist into the night air.

He wonders what it’s like to just be able to float away so easily, to disappear.  Reasonably, he thinks, it shouldn’t be that hard.  He has enough left in the bank to cover the rest of the year’s rent. He doesn’t have a car, but it’s a big enough city, how far away does he really need to go?  Maybe he could start going by, William, his middle name.  There was just not much appealing about being Louis Tomlinson.

The next drag of the cigarette is short and harsh and Louis suddenly feels much less serene.  He’s in the process of lighting his third – fourth? – of the night, hoping vaguely that he isn’t becoming addicted or anything, when there’s a distant banging coming from inside.  The front door.

“Door’s open, Ni.”  Louis shouts out.  It wasn’t uncommon for he or Niall to leave their keys on the counter or in their rooms or literally anywhere except where they’re supposed to be, and luckily neither of them cared enough to be anal about locking the door. Quiet footsteps approach him and Louis sighs, running a hand down his face.  “Look man, I’m sorry about earlier, I was totally being a – ”

When he opens his eyes, the boy in front of him is one hundred percent not Niall.  Louis just blinks, staring at him, letting the cigarette quickly burn and ash all on it’s own. 

It feels like eons before either of them speak, and Liam is the first to break the silence.

“Fuck you, Louis.”

It’s so harsh, so bitter, that if Louis hadn’t known any better, he would have sworn it had come from someone, anyone else. It’s harsh and biting and if Louis hadn’t known any better, he would have thought it came from someone else. Liam has that same face, that same cold mask of barely contained anger that Louis saw on him earlier that day.

He jumps to his feet.

“Liam, what’s – " 

“No, what’s _your_ problem?”  He’s shouting, his voice echoing into the night.  “You can’t just, just _ignore_ me like that. Fuck you!”

Louis takes the tiniest step closer, and can suddenly see the glaze over Liam’s eyes, the slight sway in the way he stands. There’s the faint smell of vodka hanging in the air. Louis is suddenly terrified.

“Liam, okay, look.  I’ll – I can explain things, okay, you need to just – ”

“No.”  With one large step, Liam is right in front of Louis. Their chests are practically touching, their faces mere inches away. 

“Liam, please.”  Louis whispers.  They’re ten stories off the ground, Liam had at least fifty pounds on him, and Louis is suddenly terrified.  Liam is just staring at him, his eyes boring into his, swaying slightly.  Louis does the only thing he can think of – he grabs both sides of Liam’s face and moves to pull away, but one of Liam’s hands clasp over his.  Liam closes his eyes for a moment, then a moment longer, then so long that Louis is starting to feel downright terrified, but when he opens them, there’s something else there. Something resembling normal Liam.

“Harry’s a dick.”  He mumbles, and Louis manages to maneuver him into the plastic chair just before he slumps to the ground.

It’s an ordeal that takes the better part of an hour, convincing Liam to at least carry half of his weight to move inside and into his bed.  Louis paces around his room, circling Liam for a good ten minutes, and when it finally seems reasonably safe that Liam isn’t going to have some sort of episode or near death experience, turns off the light and goes into the living room to settle onto the couch.  He texts Niall a quick explanation before curling up with the uncomfortable throw pillow, suddenly exhausted.  Just before his eyes fall shut for the night, he vaguely makes out the clock above the microwaving reading _12:02._

_Happy fucking Easter_. He thinks to himself before passing out.

 

*** 

Whoever said sleeping on problems was a fucking moron, Louis decides.  The next morning Louis’ still at a complete loss as to what to do about Liam, still passed out like a log in his bed.  The only person he knows that Liam does too was Harry, and even if he did have a way to contact him, he has a feeling that throwing his naked body into a pit of hungry fire ants might be a better idea. 

It’s the first time in weeks he’s been awake before noon, yet alone before nine, and he has to delve into Niall’s coffee stash to keep himself awake.  He settles into the same plastic chair on the balcony, the same spot he’s taken to ever since spring had hit the city with full force, and wills the cool breeze to wake him over the gasoline-tasting sludge.

It’s only after he’s been awake for almost an hour that he remembers the whole Easter thing.  He wonders if the girls are awake yet, and tosses his phone back and forth from hand to hand, telling himself to just _sack up_ and call Lottie or – 

“Um, hey.”

Louis whirls around to find a disheveled, off balance Liam leaning in the doorframe. He’s holding a hand up to block the sun and there’s a harsh crease on his face from the pillow.  Louis slowly stands to his feet.

“Hey.”

“I um, don’t remember everything about last night. But I remember enough.” Liam sighs as if he’s carrying he weight of the world on his shoulders.  “Louis, I am so, _so_ sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”  Louis forces a smile.  “Consider us even from – ”

“No.  It’s not okay.”  He takes a step forward, still a bit wobbly, and Louis pulls up the second chair. Liam throws himself down, close enough to Louis that their knees are touching.  Despite himself, Louis can feel the electric charge run from the brief touch through his entire body, the same as the time before. “I . . . owe you an explanation.”

“You really don’t, Liam, you –”

“Please, Lou?”  It’s the first time he ever calls him that, and Louis can feel his heart skip a beat or two.

“Yeah, fine.”  He gives in.  “Go ahead.” 

“So, Harry’s – ”

“A dick.  I remember.”  Louis can’t help but smirk, just a little bit.  “Coulda told you that.”

“He’s really not.  We’ve been friends since we were like, fifteen, and sometimes we’re more, and sometimes we’re not, and I just . . .” He sighs heavily, burying his face in his hands.  “Harry’s great, but he’s also just . . . shit.”  He sighs, and stares out away from Louis for a few more moments. “It’s hard to be too keen on someone when they’re fucking their coworker though.”

Louis doesn’t know quite what to say to that one. “He’s a moron.” He blurts out, the first thing that comes to his mind.

“Maybe.  Maybe not.  Have you seen Nick Grimshaw? Not like you can even blame him . . .”

“Nick Grimshaw?!”  Louis sputters.  Of course he’s seen Nick Grimshaw, he’s practically on every other billboard and poster for Dior nowadays, and there’s just something about his smug “sensual” face under that makes Louis want to punch his _own_ face.  “That stupid haired pratt who’s like fifty?”

“Thirty something.”  Liam says, glum, but there’s a hint of a smiling pulling at his lips. Louis shakes his head in disgust.

“You can do better.  You _are_ better, Liam. You still have a good ten years left before being all washed up and disgusting like good old Grimmy.” 

The tiny smile is growing.  “Harry tried to get me to do my hair like his once. When it was longer. I went out and got it cut the next day so he’d stop trying.”  They both laugh out loud at that one, and it rings in the air.  They’re eventually left with just the silence though.

“Yeah.  Anyway.” Liam shifts uncomfortably. “We uh, got into it last night. And I had a shot. Or two.  Or – ”

“Ten?”

“Maybe a bit more.”  Liam admits.

“Jesus.”  Louis shakes his head.  “It’s a wonder you even made it over here.”

“There’s a reason I’m not in school right now Louis. I was fine for a while, but then I started drinking, a lot, and I would get mad, and just not be myself, and bad things happened, and after a while I just couldn’t . . . handle things.” He trails off and stares at his feet, still as a statue.  Louis leans forward to put a hand on his knee and he swears he can feel Liam lighten up, just a bit.

“I just . . . this was the only place I could think of. To go.”  Liam says after a long silence, looking up through matted hair that had fallen into his eyes.  “I was a dick.”

“Kind of a scary dick.”  Louis corrects him, and smiles once he sees Liam’s face fall even further.  “Can I let you in on something?”

“I fucked off outta school myself. Only difference is, I never went back.”

Liam cocks his head.  “I didn’t know you ever went.”

Louis just shrugs.  “It was . . . a mess.  I pulled out right before I started failing everything.  My dad wasn’t too happy about that one.  My mum, back in Donny, she was uh . . ." 

“Not happy either?”

“Dunno.”  Louis shrugs. “She never really, uh . . . mentioned it. She kinda had her own thing going on. To be honest, I think she forgot I was away at school.”

Liam gives him a brief smile and one of those tiny little laughs that isn’t really a laugh but sort of is, but Louis doesn’t know how much he’s exaggerating.  He’ll never forget showing up at his house – _Daniel’s_ house he supposed it was – seeing his mom about ready to explode with yet another pair of twins with his guy Louis had met all of three times hanging onto her, while she looked at him like she wasn’t quite sure what he was doing there.

Like she had forgotten to fit him into her new life. 

“So, here I am.”  Louis said, maybe a little more bitterly than he intended. He had forgotten his hand still on Liam’s leg, and he feels a light squeeze on it.  It makes things suck just a little bit less.

“Wanna talk about something else?”

“Definitely.”

A silence hangs in the air for a few moments.

“Can I tell you something else?” Louis asks.

“Sure." 

“Kinda’ve been a dick myself.” Louis sighs, leaning back in his chair so the two legs lift off the ground.  “Do you remember anything about yelling at me?  For ignoring you?”

“Vaguely.” 

“Well, you were right.”

Liam is silent, waiting for him to go on, but he just can’t muster up the balls to say anything else.  How do you tell someone the reason you’ve been ignoring them is because of their beautiful perfect supermodel boyfriend that they’re madly in love with – after he just cheated on them?

“Lou,” Liam says, softly.  “You know everything about me, practically. But I don’t know anything about you.”

“What’s there to know?”  Louis asks, looking up at the sky, and he realizes he’s not asking Liam anymore.  “What’s there to know about Louis Tomlinson – I smoke too much and my job is shit and – ”

“You’re, like, the funniest person I know. And you didn’t run away screaming when I dropped a carton of eggs on your feet.  And you like Oscar Wilde.”

Louis turns, startled.  “How did you – ”

“When you moved in, you dropped a few books.” Liam shrugs.  “That one stuck out.”

“It’s my favorite.”  Louis admits.

“It’s a good choice.”

“You’ve read Wilde?”

“No,” Liam admits, dragging out the word. “But I’ve heard good things.”

The two share a soft chuckle.

“Do you love him?”

The words are out of Louis’ mouth before he can even process them.  His jaw drops open at _himself_ and he forces himself to try to look at least a little composed.  Liam looks away, out onto what little of the city skyline they can see.

“I used to think so.  Now . . .” He just shrugs.  “Is he the reason you were ignoring me?”

Louis spins around so fast he nearly spills the coffee all over his legs.  “Answer my question first!”

“After you answer mine.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair.”

“Dick.” 

“We’ve discussed.” 

Louis can’t even be mad, it feels so much better to see a smile on Liam’s face.

“Maybe.  Just a little.”  He admits, running a hand through his messy hair.  “I just . . . didn’t trust myself not to hate myself for competing with a fucking _super_ model.”

“The supermodel would have never fed me funnel cake.” Liam points out, and it makes Louis feel a little less embarrassed.  “Besides, if I’m not allowed to compete with Nick Grimshaw, you’re not allowed to compete with Harry Styles.  Deal?”

“We’re much better off.”  Louis agrees. 

Liam sticks out his pinky finger which Louis happily accepts with his, and before either of them have a chance to pull away, the rest of their fingers slowly intertwine together.

“You know, this is probably the weirdest Easter I’ve ever had.” Louis admits.  He watches as Liam’s face goes from blank confusion to horrified shock and realization.

“Shit. Easter.  _Shit_.” Liam leaps to his feet, practically tripping over himself as he runs back inside.

“Where are you going?”  Louis calls after him.

“You’ll see.”  Liam says as he flings open Louis’ front door.  He looks over his shoulder right before disappearing.  “But you gotta put on some pants first.”

***

“ _Incoming!_ ” Ruth screams as she pulls back her leg and kicks the football with all of her might in Louis’ direction. He jumps up and catches it with ease, and Liam and Nicola scream from the sidelines. 

“Not fair.  You brought an athlete home Liam.”  Ruth grumbles good naturedly, shaking Louis’ hand like a good sport.  Liam turns the slightest shade of red and Louis can’t help but laugh. The first thing he had noticed about the Payne’s back yard was the goal pitches set up in the back.

“Lemme know if you wanna kick around some.”  Liam had said as he noticed Louis’ eyes go wide, but before he could even respond, Liam’s two older sisters were challenging them to a quick game before dinner. 

It’s been well over a year since he’s played, really played, and his legs are sore from being out of shape and his lungs are burning, but it’s the best he’s felt in ages. 

Karen, Liam’s mum, hollered something from the back door, and Liam jogged over to grab his hand.  “Showtime.” He grinned, and followed the family inside.

The Payne’s Easter celebration was loud and chatty and lively in a way that reminded Louis of all of his own growing up, but in a way that brought back pleasant nostalgia, rather than the painful sort of ache he was used to whenever he thought about his family. 

Ruth and Nicola kept him busy by bombarding him with questions about, well, everything.  As soon as Karen heard his name, her face lit up and she turned to Liam.  “Oh Liam, is this that boy down the hall you said you was helping you out?”  Liam turned the color of a fire engine and nearly slid under the table, Ruth and Nicola dissolved into hysterics, and Louis was fairly positive that Karen had done that on purpose.  Geoff was merciful on his poor son, and struck up a pleasant conversation with Louis about the Chelsea vs. Stoke City match from a few days before.

“My family is evil.”  Liam says later. The two are laying in the backyard under a patch of trees Liam seems to have a particular attachment to, enjoying the shade as they digest the massive quantities of food Karen insisted they all consume.

“Your family is awesome.”  Louis corrects him, and he truly, genuinely, means it.  “Must be nice not to have to wrangle anyone.”

“Just wait until Ruth gets the pinot grigio in her.” 

“I’m stoked – only if we can get you a little tipsy too.”

Liam just groans and holds a hand over his forehead, making Louis tip his head back in laughter.

“Chances I’ll ever live that one down?”

“Get back to me in twenty years or so.”  Louis smirks, and as Liam lowers his hand, it finds Liam, fingers twining tightly together in the grass.  The silence that falls between them is strangely peaceful as they both stare up at the clouds passing above them through the leaves.

“You should call them.”  Liam says, softly. Louis blows a stray chunk of hair out of his eyes.

“It might be a giant fucking mess.”

“It might be.”  Liam admits. “But if it is . . .” He grip on Louis’ hand tightens.  Louis pulls out his phone smiles at him, despite how fast his heart is pounding, and gets up to take a few steps away. 

His thumb hovers over Lottie’s contact before he wills himself to press the call button.  After three rings, he’s discouraged, ready to give up – when he hears something resembling a crash and a shriek of some sort on the other end.

“Daisy or Phoebe?”  He asks before he could stop himself.

“Probably both.  They’ve been especially _chummy_ lately. I don’t trust them.” It’s been months since he’s heard Lottie’s voice, and she already sounds different – he was positive that she was going to sound like their mother as she got older, but Louis swears she sounds like him.  “Hiya big bro.”

“Hiya, shrimp.  How’s the homefront doing?”

“It’s . . .” He hears yet another shriek, louder this time.  “It’s going.  You want the short version or the long version?”

“Give me everything you got.”

It’s nearly a fifteen minute conversation – a monologue on Lottie’s part really, chronicling the way Phoebe and Daisy fuck with the younger twins who are just learning how to walk, how Fizzy has decided in the past month that she _needs_ a boyfriend, how Lottie herself is getting ready for her upcoming A-levels.

It’s all so mundane and trivial and Lottie goes into a shit ton of details that are far from necessary, and Louis couldn’t be happier.

“I’m really glad you called, Louis.”  Lottie says after one of her stories.  “I really miss you.”

“I miss you too.”  Louis says, and he means it, with all of his heart.

“When can I come visit?" 

“Whenever Mom lets you.  Try not to give her too much grief about it.”

“Like she’ll even notice.”  She huffs into the phone, her voice growing slightly colder.

“Lottie . . .”

“She keeps asking _me_ and Fizzy if you were coming today, and we kept telling her to call you herself, but then one of the babies was crying all last night and she hasn’t even _mentioned_ anything today and just – ”

“Lottie. It’s fine.  Really.  I’m having a good time today.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I know."

“The babies suck at finding eggs.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else.  No one can ever take down the dream team.”

There’s laughter from the other end of the line, and Louis is relieved. “You’re doing okay, right Lou?”

Liam’s been patiently waiting the whole time, trying and failing to pretend like he isn’t watching Louis from their spot in the grass.  When he sees Louis staring, a look of concern crosses his face, and he holds up a thumbs up for reassurance.

Louis holds one up just the same, and the two smile at each other.

“Yeah. I’m doing pretty damn good.”


End file.
